Southfield — a Detroit suburb with a large health care business community — is seeking companies for a health care corridor it is creating in the south end of the city.
The city’s Cornerstone Development Authority hopes to add more health-related businesses in an area stretching from 8 Mile to Mt. Vernon Road (9 1/2 Mile Road) and Greenfield to Southfield.
The district surrounds the nearby Northland Center shopping mall.
Al Aceves, executive director of the authority, said the City Council is scheduled to vote Feb. 28 to authorize as much as $400,000 this year for the effort, for continued improvements in the district; for a marketing campaign to recruit more businesses, and related projects like the farmer’s market.
Southfield already has spent money on lighting, sidewalk improvements and new trash receptacles in the district, he said. “We want to make this area as safe and as nice-looking as possible,” he said.
The 1-mile district is home to about 6,000 employees at 12 companies, including St. John Providence Hospital, Health Alliance Plan and a campus with a booming health care curriculum at the Southfield branch of Oakland Community College, along with a dialysis and a blood collection center, Aceves said. Soon, a large physical therapy business will join the corridor, he said.
Southfield has “plenty of existing office space” in the corridor but also is willing to work with a company to create large land parcels for development.
For details, go to www.southfielddda.com.
